“I’m going to play sports.” “I’m going to work my
way up the food chain.” I figured I could never
have a professional, white-collar career, but I
could learn everything about business and be an
entrepreneur.
I also did it to pay for school. That was my
justification. I was young, and it was stupid and
a very bad decision and insensitive. No one can
afford college, yet people still find ways to pay
for it that don’t include selling drugs.
But after my second arrest, it was over. I told
everyone in that world, “I quit.” I cut off every-
body. Now I have zero interest in selling drugs.
The idea is nauseating.
Before I went to prison, I went home to
spend a month with my father and little sisters. I
wanted to write my final paper and get my mas-
ter’s degree. Ten days after I got to prison, my
diploma arrived in the mail.
I spent forty-eight months in prison at Fort
Dix, New Jersey. I was not a violent criminal, so
this was a minimum-security facility. I felt anxiety
early on, but I was able to man up and handle it.
I had done this to myself; it’s not like somebody
did me wrong.
But I knew I was going to have to do jail a cer-
tain way. While I was there, I read and studied
urban economics for hours a day. At the same
time I was like, “OK, I need a job.”
In prison, everyone works out, and people
liked to work out with me. I met another inmate,
a physical therapist serving time for insurance
fraud who had started a kind of gladiator school
in the prison, where inmates could learn how to
be personal trainers. I thought, “I’ll give that a
shot.” A lot of guys coming out of prison were
the best personal trainers. They’d motivate peo-
ple and make them work harder by, like, making
fun of them. I decided, “If I’m going to do this,
I’m going to be a mastermind at it.”
I trained with that program for eight hours a
day. If there’s a way to be successful in prison, I
was very successful.
I got out and was hired by a health club. I
became the number-one trainer in the whole
company. I was running small group fitness classes
and looking for ways to bring in new clients.
By then I was taking hot yoga once a week and
decided to get formal training as a yoga instructor
and use it to create a feeder program at my club. I
thought, “People will take my yoga class, and they
will say, ‘You’re amazing,’ and I’ll say, ‘Thank you.
Now come take small group training.’”
But the whole teacher training was an epiph-
any. It was ten-hour days and reading the
Bhagavad Gita and sitting with my mentor. When
I was done, I didn’t care anymore about the
feeder program. It wasn’t, “I’m going to use yoga
to build my other business,” it was, “I’m going to
help people train their minds, and that’s going to
give them peace.”
I still have ambition. I am still a risk taker. But I
avoid certain types of energy. I’ve stopped hanging
around certain types of people. I’ve made a deci-
sion to practice yoga every day.
I don’t go to the hot room for a workout; I’m
there to find myself. To find my breath. To meditate
in every pose.
It helps me feel like a superhero, to be honest.
Seriously, that’s how I feel.